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White House Is Told to Hand Over Records

The Justice Department is demanding that the White House turn over ''all documents that relate in any way'' to the unauthorized disclosure of a C.I.A. officer's identity, and the White House on Friday gave its employees until next Tuesday to comply.

The demand signals that the F.B.I.'s investigation into the question of who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. officer is focusing squarely on the White House and is moving into a critical early phase, as investigators seek a paper trail of all relevant documents.

The Justice Department has also directed the C.I.A., the State Department and the Pentagon to retain all records that might be relevant to the investigation. But only the White House is known to have been directed to turn over records.

Investigators want access to all electronic records, phone logs, documents, diaries or other items related to former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, his trip to Niger in 2002 in a search for Iraqi nuclear intelligence, his wife's relationship with the C.I.A., or any contact with the syndicated columnist Robert Novak and two other reporters who wrote about the Wilson case. The Justice Department notified the White House about the demand in a letter on Thursday night, which the White House publicized on Friday.

The keen interest in Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa in February 2002, taken at the request of the C.I.A., which dispatched him to try to verify accusations linking Saddam Hussein to a quest for nuclear weapons, has surprised current and former law enforcement officials. The wide scope of the records request suggested that the Justice Department wanted to establish not only whether any administration officials had disclosed classified information, but also whether White House records could link the motivation for that leak to information related to Mr. Wilson's African mission.

In a memorandum sent to all White House employees on Friday morning, Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the president, said the Justice Department had ''requested that we provide these documents'' to aid in its investigation.

But he also noted that prosecutors had imposed deadlines for compliance, and a former prosecutor with experience in leak investigations said the Justice Department's directive was a request in name only.

''Anyone who does not immediately produce relevant documents is risking an obstruction of justice charge,'' the former prosecutor said.

Mr. Gonzalez told employees they had until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to turn over to his office any documents relevant to the investigation, and they must sign a letter certifying that they had complied. A White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the Justice Department had established a list of prioritized items that it wanted to see first and that the White House expected to turn over all relevant documents to the Justice Department within the next two weeks.

With only three days for White House employees to turn over records to Mr. Gonzales, the directive is likely to set off a time-consuming scrub of White House records just as the Bush administration is turning its attentions to the 2004 election campaign.

''These things are a major headache,'' said a former Clinton administration official who worked at the White House at a time when it was hit with numerous document requests as part of investigations into Whitewater and other matters. ''If the things they're looking for aren't in your active files, it's in a box somewhere and you have to go find it. It's very time-consuming.''

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Mr. Novak reported in a syndicated July column that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the C.I.A.. Mr. Wilson has suggested that the unauthorized disclosure was designed by the White House to intimidate him after he had challenged the credibility of its Iraqi intelligence. In an Op-Ed article days earlier in The New York Times, the former ambassador said his 2002 trip to Niger found nothing to substantiate the accusation that Saddam Hussein had bought uranium ore yellowcake in Niger and that the Bush administration had exaggerated the intelligence as it ramped up for war with Iraq.

George Terwilliger III, who served as deputy attorney general in the first Bush administration, said he was surprised that officials were seeking 18-month-old information on Mr. Wilson's Niger trip. ''One would hope that this investigation would be quite focused and expedited, and it's not immediately apparent to me how this advances the investigation,'' Mr. Terwilliger said.

Mr. Wilson and others have suggested that they believe Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, was behind the leak, but the White House said earlier this week that any accusations linking Mr. Rove to the episode were ''ridiculous.''

Justice Department officials on Friday refused to discuss the demand for documents or any other legal tactics in the case.

''All I can say is this investigation will go wherever the evidence takes us,'' said Mark Corallo, a department spokesman.

As the leak investigation has dominated the White House this week, Democrats have pushed for Attorney General John Ashcroft to appoint a special counsel because they maintain that the attorney general's close political ties to the White House could compromise the investigation.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, stepped up the attack on Friday in a letter to Mr. Ashcroft questioning whether the investigation ''is being mishandled to the point where authorities will be unable to prosecute those who committed this felonious breach of national security.''

The senator accused the Justice Department of being slow to order the White House, the Defense Department and the State Department to preserve records relevant to the investigation. The delay, he said, ''gave potential targets of the investigation time to destroy evidence.''

But Justice Department officials said they were moving quickly to ensure a fair and complete investigation, and the agencies they have contacted pledged their cooperation.

''The president has directed everyone to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice,'' Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. ''We want to get to the bottom of this, the sooner the better.''